The Next Thing I Knew (Heavenly) (15 page)

There was a long pause then the transmit symbol reappeared.  "The risk to your crew is immaterial.  You are hereby ordered to recommence work."

I groaned.  This was not going as hoped.

Zhrrii seemed to gather herself for a moment before replying.  "There are forces on this planet which will continue interfere with operations.  This may result in widespread damage to your goals here.  We request direct help."

The pause was even longer this time, stretching for over ten minutes before the "Stand by" symbol reappeared.  The minutes stretched into an agonizing hour before the voice replied.

"Request denied.  Recommence operations."

The hologram blinked out.

I sat alone on a quiet playground in a dead neighborhood, trying to meditate.  Instead, I kept cursing myself.  We'd never lure Shaval here.  If the bastard was too lazy to come kill us himself, what would make him come now?  Kyle called me.  I almost ignored him but decided I could use some company.  He appeared a moment later.

"We did it," he said, glee on his face.

"Uh, did what?  Failed?"

"Ciirr, my host, and I rigged their transmitter last week to trace any incoming calls just in case Shaval contacted them."

"You know where Shaval's home world is?"

"Maybe.  We know about where the transmission came from."

I jumped up and whooped.  "This is great.  He doesn't come to us, we go to him.  Maybe we can possess his sorry ass and jump in a volcano."

"Not quite," Kyle said.  "You're forgetting something."

"What?"

"We're stuck to our solar system.  I never figured out how to go further in space than last time without something pulling me back in."

"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!" I said in a wheezing voice. 

"You're quoting The Godfather at a time like this?"

"It's not like I have anything more productive to add except, oh crap!  That is a problem."  I thought about how many lives were at stake now.  Not just the six billion human spirits, but the Rrilk as well.  If they didn't resume operations, Shaval might throw a switch somewhere, kill them off, and send in more.  Maybe we could convince the next crews to go along with us as well, but it'd probably cost their lives too.  My conscience couldn't handle the deaths of so many.

"Hmm."  Kyle stroked his chin.  "If we vanish when our bodies do, that means we're somehow chained to them."

I thought about what Anil had said about how we were locked into patterns from living most of our lives in a flesh and blood body.  "What about the really old ghosts people have seen?  If their bodies are decomposed, how are they still around?"

"The Rrilk conversion method changes matter into quantum fuel.  It radically alters the molecular structure.  Maybe the spirits lose cohesion and can't exist anymore.  Natural decomposition takes a long time for everything to completely break down."

"We're missing something," I said.  "But I think I see where you're going with this.  If we take our bodies with us, we might be able to go anywhere."

"Exactly."

"That means we'll need a ship."

"Damn it.  That's not going to work."

"The Rrilk have space ships, so we're good, right?"

"They have shuttles that travel a little slower than light speed.  At that rate it'll take us forever to get where we're going.  The big ships can't go that fast either."

I sat back down and mused.  A shuttle wouldn't solve the problem in the short term.  We had no idea how long it'd take Shaval to get here even if we could lure him.  If he didn't have access to anything faster than those shuttles, we might not have much to fear for a long while.

"Kyle, why don't you ask Ciirr to take you and your body into space.  Go on a little joyride and see if your theory is true.  At least then we'll know for sure in the eventuality that Shaval shows his ugly mug."

"I'll do better.  They have massive stasis chambers used to transport samples from different worlds with them.  Maybe they can gather all our bodies and store them so they don't decompose further in the meantime."

"Just our bodies, or the bodies of the general populace?"

He shook his head.  "We're the only ones doing something about this problem.  Maybe just our group and family members."

"That just feels wrong.  How many bodies could one chamber hold?"

"Maybe a hundred thousand human bodies.  But some of that space is already taken up with species from the other planets they've been to."

"They have an alien zoo in their ship and you didn't tell me about it?"

"It's not like you can look through bars and see them.  The chamber is divided into cubes, like a pet store, except you can't look inside the sections that are under stasis."

"And it'd probably be a bad idea to cut the creatures loose."

Kyle shuddered.  "Ciirr told me there are things in there that could kill off indigenous life on our planet in no time."

"Lovely."

I spoke to him for a few minutes about the dangers of introducing alien creatures to Earth--something that might make for an interesting Animal Planet show if anyone figured out how to make television work in Heavenly.  After he left, I paced around a bit, hit a mental block, and figured it might be time to look in on a few loose ends.

I checked on Nick.  He wasn't too hard to find since Kyle had assigned a few trustworthy members of our team to keep tabs on him.  I'd been thinking a lot about him lately.  With my new skills, I knew it was time to either confirm or assuage my doubts about his alien connections.  Nick may have unknowingly been used by Shaval to kill us.

He was camped out in an old farmstead in southern Argentina.  He had plenty of food.  He was also plenty scared.  This part of the world wasn't ground zero for the Rrilk operations since they'd started in major cities around the world.  But one of Kyle's operatives told me Nick had made it far enough north to see the Rrilk converting a mid-sized city into energy cubes.  He'd spied on them a while, then retreated south.  Since then, he'd been stockpiling whatever weapons he could find but didn't hold out much hope of surviving.

Dead bodies lay everywhere as well.  It hadn't taken Nick long to know that something horrible and widespread had happened during his exile.  The poor guy was beside himself with fear and grief.  It was time to let him know he wasn't alone.

I found him sitting in the kitchen of the old farmhouse.  The place was clean, but worn with age.  Cracked white paint covered the doors and walls.  The antique stove burned coal.  The oak table was battered with age and use, but could still probably take another century of hard duty.  A clear bottle filled with amber alcohol sat in the center of the table.  I expected Nick would be drunk as usual.  But he wasn't drinking the alcohol.  He was pouring it into other smaller bottles and stuffing rags in them.

"He's making Molotov cocktails," a familiar voice said.

I spun and saw a face I hadn't seen since dying.  "Jane!"  I grasped her in a fierce hug.  "I looked everywhere for you on D-Day, but got sidetracked."

She smiled that crooked clever smile of hers that always spelled trouble, especially for me.  "I did some pretty extreme experimentation during our first months.  I only started looking for family recently."

"But if you're here, that means Kyle found you."

"I found him.  When you guys put out a general distress call for volunteers, I came."

That meant she'd been here a while.  My happiness turned a bit sour.  "And why the hell didn't you tell me you were here?  Why didn't Kyle tell me?"

"He didn't know it was me."

"Bull.  Kyle could identify you a mile away.  He used to have a huge crush on you."

Jane turned away.  "Really?" she said.  Except her voice no longer sounded the same.  Her hair shortened and turned honey gold, then light brown.  She turned back to me and it was no longer the cousin I'd known.  It was a cute brown girl with cropped hair.

"Holy crap."

Her features morphed back over the course of a few seconds.  "It's really hard to hold it for long.  Your self-image has to change inside here," she said, tapping her head.  "I didn't want him to know it was me.  I was pretty messed up in life.  It felt like a chance to start over, maybe do something worthwhile."

"No excuse for hiding from your cousin, punk."

She smiled wistfully.  "I know.  I want you to know how proud I am of you, Luce.  Everyone in the group looks up to you."

"Are you kidding?  I'm pretty sure half of them hate me."

"They respect you.  I respect you.  You saved our lives."

I cleared my throat and looked away to keep sudden tears at bay.  "Do you have a Rrilk host?"

"Yes.  I've been practicing.  I love my Rrilk."

"They're not pets, silly.  What made you decide to show yourself to me now?"

"I missed you."  Her right eye twitched.  I'd seen that same twitch a million times before.  Jane was lying to me.  It could be a little white lie, or something big.  And no matter how much I prodded her, she wouldn't admit it.

I decided not to confront her about it.  It wasn't important.  Not now.  "I'd better get to work," I said.  "Let's catch up later."

She hugged me again, kissed me on the cheek.  "I'm headed back to base, cuz.  Ciao."

Nick cursed as he spilled some alcohol on the table.  Was he seriously going to throw these things at the Rrilk or the giant centipedes? 

I slipped into my meditative pose, hovering next to him.  I merged into him almost effortlessly.  I felt his thought stream pressing against my mental dam, but it wasn't as hard to keep it at bay as it had been with Zhrrii.  Maybe because he and I shared human genes, or maybe because I was better at it now.  I found his conscious thoughts.  He wasn't even aware I'd linked up with him although he wondered why the temperature had dropped a few degrees.  Then he stopped what he was doing as his mind remembered something.

"Lucy?" he said. 
It feels just like those times I dreamed of her.

It's me.

He jumped, spilled more alcohol, and stared around him.

I'm in your head, silly.  Just as always.

"So I am going nuts.  Bloody hell.  First aliens, now I'm crazy.  Or maybe I'm just crazy and there are no aliens."

I laughed. 
You're not crazy.  The bad news:  Everyone is dead and aliens have landed.  The worse news:  You're the only human alive.

"I take it there's no good news then?"

Well, the aliens here are going to help us.

"Help us?  Wait, if humans are dead, who's us?"

That might take a while to explain.
  But I did.  For the next several hours, I told Nick everything.  And while I did, I spied on his past.  I went back to the time during the car crash to see what he knew.  I didn't find much.  After answering his questions he still seemed reluctant to believe that he wasn't simply crazy.  I told him we'd send a shuttle to pick him up and take him to base, that being Atlanta.

"Will an alien be in it?"

Yes.  They look scary as hell, but they're pretty cool.  Don't panic.

"After those images you showed me in my brain, I don't know if I can stay calm.  I might crap myself.  How would that be for meeting their first living human?"

Considering how stinky their natural odor is, I don't think they'll notice a little poo in your britches.

He laughed.

I need to ask you some questions.  They relate to your parents' deaths.

Nick stiffened.  "If you've been in my head before, then you probably know how stupid I was during my last few years."

I don't think you were stupid.  I think you were used.
  I tapped into his memories and pushed the last few seconds before the crash into his conscious mind.

"Why am I seeing this?  Wasn't it bad enough having to live through it once?"

You'll see why.
  I skipped to the part with the floating orb.  I'd examined it earlier.  It was definitely alien. 
What is that?

It took him a while to answer.  I noticed he was holding back tears.  "I have no idea."

I think that thing brainwashed you.  That's why you blanked out for a few days.  Kyle thinks you might have been carrying a disease that wiped humans out.

He pushed back in his chair and jolted to his feet.  "You think I'm responsible for killing everyone?  You think I'm a monster?"

Calm down, Nick.  We think you were used.  And you probably weren't the only one.  There's no way one person could spread the disease to all corners of the Earth.

"Are you sure there aren't any other survivors?  Maybe in remote parts of the planet?"

We haven't found any.  Look, it doesn't matter.  We're dead and there's nothing to be done about it.

"Unless Shaval shows up and tears us a new one.  Again."

Right.

"What can I do to help?"

I really don't know.  For now, I want you safe.
  I called Kyle and asked him to bring the shuttle in.  He was merged with Ciirr.  They'd decided having Kyle in his host might smooth the psychological impact for both parties.  When Kyle had asked him to help gather bodies, Ciirr had been deathly afraid.  He thought humans were scary looking and gross.  Oh, I'd had a laugh about that one.

Let's go outside.  The shuttle will be here shortly.

Nick took one last look at his meager lodging.  He grabbed a suitcase of clothes he'd scavenged together over the past few weeks of travelling and stepped into the chilly night air.